There seems to be strong economic data recently from US. A healthy rise in exports, retails sales topped forecast, healthy job creation, Institute and Supply Management indexes for both manufacturing and services has come in above expectations, have all added positive sentiments to US market. Oil price has also come down.
Sentiments might be positive this coming week.......
hm. concur, billywows. looking to lock in all positions by end jan actually; TA, FA or whatever holdings. not unless it happens to be an exceptional counter...
US market will be closed for holiday on Monday. With just 4 trading days next week, watch it chiong again with earnings from the heavy-weights and economic data.
But am wary that steam is running out soon. I guess a good correction by mid-February .....
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MARKET SNAPSHOT
U.S. stocks seen rising next week!
Apple, IBM earnings could fuel tech rally; commodities to remain in focus
hey cashiertan...actually, what i'm sensing is akin to your intuition...it's as though the market is currently dancing on the fragile knife edge of sentiment, and the euphoria somehow seems unreal.
and yea, agree TA of not much relation to the actual market now; if you've being screening stocks (just did a batch yesterday), what i found was that lead indicators are not accurate for a lot of counters; am depending on the lag indicators and going by instinct mainly.
eg LumChang--its lead indicators are all reading down, but sentiment dictates it'll move up next week.
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - U.S. stocks opened mixed on Friday, backing off a prior-day rally that drove the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a record, after a profit-warning from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. cast a shadow on the technology sector's recent leadership.
In addition, stronger-than-expected December retail sales were being weighed by bulls and bears. On the one hand, it might hint to resilient consumption and economy, and on the other, it might prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates as early as some hoped to stave off a slowdown.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 7 points at 12,508, weighed by the likes of Intel Corp.
The S&P 500 was up almost 2 points to 1,425. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, gained 5 points to 2,490.
Exxon Mobil Corp., however, provided support as crude oil prices gained 23 cents to $52.11 a barrel, after tumbling all week.
Since the start of the new year, investors haved moved money out of a fast-falling energy sector and into tech shares.
But as the fourth-quarter earnings season unfolds, the market will be on the lookout for profit forecasts.
Shares of AMD , which produces semiconductors, dipped 10%. The company warned Thursday after the close that significantly lower microprocessor average selling prices have hurt fourth-quarter operating income, offsetting a "significant" increase in unit sales.
Analysts from Citigroup, Prudential, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley all slapped downgrades on AMD.
Semiconductors, are found in many technology products, and are therefore bellwethers for the tech sector as a whole.
In spite of AMD's warning, other tech shares continued to advance, such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Microsoft Corp. on the Dow and internet stocks such as Google Inc.and Amazon.com Inc. on the Nasdaq.
"The market today will be driven by a combination of macro and micro factors," said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak.
"The micro, company-specific factor is the AMD warning, while the macro, economic factor is the retail sales report, which came in stronger than expected," he said. "That caused the bond market to sell off, which could be a headwind [for the stock market] today."
The Commerce Department reported that retail sales rose a better-than-expected 0.9% in December, the best gain in five months. The consensus forecast of Wall Street economists was for retail sales to rise 0.7%.
The dollar rose to a fresh 13-month high against the yen and seven-week high versus the euro early Friday.
A strong dollar, however, failed to pressure gold, which rose $4.60 to 618.60.
On the broad market for equities, trading volume was 213 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange and 342 million on the Nasdaq.
Advancing issues topped decliners by a margin of 9 to 5 on the NYSE and 3 to 2 on the Nasdaq.
U.S. stock futures were little moved on Friday, while shares of Advanced Micro Devices looked set to tumble after the Intel rival warned fourth-quarter profit and sales wouldn't grow as fast as analysts had predicted.
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures were little moved on Friday ahead of the release of figures on December retail sales, while shares of Advanced Micro Devices looked set to tumble after the Intel rival warned fourth-quarter profit and sales wouldn't grow as fast as analysts had predicted.
S&P 500 futures edged down 0.8 of a point at 1,430.10 and Nasdaq 100 futures eased 0.25 points at 1849.50. Dow industrial futures slipped 2 points.
On Thursday, the Dow industrials hit a record high, and the Nasdaq Composite rose to a six-year high, as investors continued to move out of the energy sector and into the technology sector. Intel, HP and Microsoft were among the stocks that propelled the Dow to a new high-level mark.
But Advanced Micro Devices is expected to drop on Friday after its profit warning. Analysts have said that rival Intel has won back market share with new products and aggressive price competition.
AMD shares tumbled 6% in Frankfurt, while Intel's were little moved.
Also in focus on Friday will be data on December's retail sales(out 2130hrs S'pore time), which probably rose 0.7%, or 0.5% when excluding auto sales. Also to be released will be figures on import prices in December and business inventories in November.
Boston Fed President Cathy Minehan, who's about to become a voting member of the FOMC, is due to speak on the economic outlook.
The euro edged up on the dollar, while the greenback inched higher on the Japanese yen.
Crude oil futures saw a rebound in early morning action, with February-dated contract up 89 cents at $52.77 a barrel. Even with Friday's rise, crude is still down about 14% since the start of the year.
If the US Market rise with good strength, regional bourses will likely follow its step, and STI being influenced by the regional markets will likely also move in tandem accordingly .... :D
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